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The Resistance Brief: Summoning Hope

Blog by Ricardo Martinez (he/him), Executive Director

Soft footsteps shuffled up and down the hallways of the GLAD Law offices, interrupting the silence after the Skrmetti Supreme Court ruling upholding a Tennessee ban on healthcare for transgender youth. Our Communications & Public Education Coordinator walked door to door, checking in and holding space for her colleagues.

This thoughtful action, simple in its technique and gentle in its approach, changed the way many of our staff navigated that day. In acknowledging and processing their shared pain together, they collected the implicit devastation in the air and claimed it as a core memory honoring our united struggle for equality. And in honoring our collective efforts leading up to this critical juncture, they practiced gratitude and cultivated a sense of hope for the future.

Recently, Representative Sarah McBride was quoted as saying, “Hope is a conscious effort – it’s audacious.” During times like these – when hope doesn’t feel tangible – it must be summoned from the depths of our despair, beyond the part of us that is angry and disillusioned with the world as it is.

Rep. McBride continued, noting that “hope isn’t about optimism, or circumstance, or evaluating likelihood.” It is recognizing that beyond the horizon, at the peak of the summit, and beyond the trees, there is a better world we get to co-create.

Hope has powered our movement for LGBTQ+ equality when losses have cut really deep. In 1986, after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws criminalizing consensual sex between same-sex partners and limited privacy rights under the Constitution in Bowers v. Hardwick, our movement didn’t give up. We grieved a loss at the height of the AIDS crisis, regrouped and got to work. It took time and perseverance, but our community’s effort and dedication eventually led to the Supreme Court reversing itself 17 years later in Lawrence v. Texas, expressly acknowledging that “Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today,” and rendering all laws criminalizing sodomy unconstitutional. From the ashes of Bowers, and a movement’s work, came a decision underscoring LGBTQ+ people’s right to liberty and privacy. And Lawrence in turn was a building block to the Obergefell marriage equality ruling issued 10 years ago yesterday.

Hope declares that we believe in the power of a committed collective to right the wrongs of the world. It inspires the innovation, courage, and boldness we need to show up differently – battle-tested – and show out again and again.

No one teaches us how to hold people gently while the world debates our very existence in the public square. No one coaches us on how to care for ourselves and others when we exceed our anxiety and trauma threshold. And yet, when devastating events like the heartbreaking Skrmetti decision are announced, our community has reliably shown up determined to face the full-on assault on equality head-on because, as a good friend of mine reminded me, we cannot “predicate fighting on winning.”

I recently took part in a panel titled “Leading in Times of Uncertainty and Volatility.” We shared strategies on how to care for our staff, ourselves, and our community during a period of sustained government dysfunction, Supreme Court losses, lawmaker inaction, attacks on vulnerable communities, and political polarization.

The panel was an opportunity to share the strategies that have worked, but the reality is that we don’t always know how to prepare for the next crisis, and sometimes, showing up gingerly and stepping beside the rubble together is all we can do.

Our fight at its core must have soul – it must be anchored in vulnerability, compassion, grace, kindness, and anger. Yes, anger – because it is righteous to feel outrage at the indignities caused by the losses we face during this fight. While our setbacks are real, they are never the end of the story. We keep moving forward, refining our concrete strategies and developing novel tactics to galvanize people to create meaningful and sustainable change.

The tide can and will turn.

What to know, what to do:

Tell Governor Ayotte not to take health care decisions away from families of transgender youth
Learn more about how the Massachusetts Senate is working to protect reproductive and transgender care
Join us at a virtual briefing on July 1 to hear about the impact of the Supreme Court’s final rulings and what comes next
Celebrate the Obergefell 10th anniversary of marriage equality by reading Why it Matters, How We Won, and the Road Ahead
Check out Evident Media’s interview with Major Erica Vandal on the transgender military ban

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Why Did Marriage Become a Legal Fight?

Why did it take a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2015 for same-sex couples to be able to marry nationwide? After all, deciding whether and whom to marry is an intensely personal decision, a religious exercise for many, and is associated with a life partnership of mutual responsibility, love, care, and commitment. Our traditions and laws allow individuals, not the government, to make that choice for themselves.

The short answer is that States control marriage laws and many states implicitly or explicitly barred same-sex couples from marrying. Those laws collided with the human aspirations and families of LGBTQ+ people who, like generations of people before them, consented to join in marriage with the person of their choice, benefit from marriage’s protections, and take responsibility for one another.

So while states regulate marriage, they must do so in accord with the U.S. Constitution. In earlier cases about or related to marriage, the Supreme Court had already recognized it as “the most important relation in life,” “the foundation of family and … society,” one of “our basic liberties” and “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness.”

In Turner v. Safley, a 1987 case about the right of incarcerated people to marry, the Court noted that many elements of marriage remain even with the limitations of prison life, including “expression of personal dedication,” “spiritual significance,” “expectations” of intimacy, and its function as a “precondition for government benefits, property rights, … and less tangible rights.”

Marriage provides profound protection for a couple and their family, starting with legal and societal recognition that eases their way in the world. The rights and responsibilities associated with marriage – hundreds at the state level and over 1000 at the federal level – extend to legal parentage to the couple’s children, workplace and retirement protections, joint ownership of property, family insurance policies and tax rules and filings, as well as inheritance, decision-making, and other protections on a spouse’s disability or death .

In November 2003 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case of Goodridge v. MA Department of Public Health broke the historical barrier and for the first time in the United States, a high court ruled that same-sex couples have a right to marry under the state constitution’s equality and liberty guarantees. In its first paragraph the Court declared marriage “a vital social institution” that “nurtures love and mutual support” and “brings stability to our society.” It also called attention to the benefits and responsibilities of marriage: “For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial and social benefits,” and in return “imposes weighty legal, financial and social obligations.”

Rooted in principles of equality, liberty, association, and intimate choice, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared multiple times that “the right to marry is of fundamental importance for all individuals.” It’s done so when state laws barred people from marrying because they had outstanding child support obligations, were in prison, sought to marry a person of another race or sought to marry a person of the same sex. Marriage has always been a right, even as a common law right before the U.S. was a country, and the Court has rejected state laws limiting marriage for classes of people.

Same-sex couples are hardly the first to confront laws colliding with our constitutional guarantees of equal protection of the laws, due process of law and others. Throughout U.S. history, state restrictions once barred some people from marrying on racial, ethnic, or health-related grounds that we now recognize as discriminatory. In the foundational (and best-named) case of Loving v. Virginia, a state trial judge sentenced Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter to jail for violating Virginia’s laws barring interracial marriage unless they left the State. They left Virginia and filed suit. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 1967 on equal protection grounds that states cannot restrict marriage based on the race of the partners, and the “the freedom to marry” is part of liberty and the vital personal rights of all Americans. Loving’s dual frameworks of equal protection and due process for evaluating marriage restrictions has continued to this day.

The Obergefell court, looking to both the “essential” marriage right and equal protection, inaugurated nationwide marriage equality on June 26, 2015. Same sex couples could marry in every state on the same terms and conditions as all others, and they would be accorded the same “constellation of benefits” afforded to other married couples.

In the 2017 Pavan v. Smith case, the Supreme Court reinforced the responsibilities of states for equal treatment, and rejected a state court’s refusal to list both parents on a child’s birth certificate.

Marriage equality touches and benefits entire communities across the country. One way we can protect equality is through conversations about why marriage matters to us and to others.

Whether you are part of a married couple, have LGBTQ+ parents, are a sibling, parent, grandparent, family member, friend, co-worker, or neighbor, we’d love to know about your experience. Share your story today.

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Why Marriage Equality Matters

Deciding whether and whom to marry is an intensely personal decision, a religious exercise for many, and strongly associated with a lifelong partnership of love, mutual responsibility, care, and commitment. Same-sex couples sought and seek to marry for these purposes too, and to form a family recognized by law and society. Our traditions and laws allow individuals, not the government, to make that choice for themselves.

There have always been people who fell in love and wanted to marry, but who knew full well that the law forbade this. After the Loving v. Virginia case striking down race discrimination in marriage, couples called attention to the sex discrimination in marriage restrictions, because they, too, wanted to participate in this vital personal right. Without marriage as an option, they could not be the family that their parents, friends and extended family could be.

At GLAD law, we saw so many people building families together even as the law regarded them as legal strangers. Marriage provides profound protection for a couple and their family, starting with legal and societal recognition of their family that eases their way in the world and allows them to plan a life together, including, if they choose, raising children.

As the Obergefell court stated, without marriage as an option, the “harm results in more than just material burdens. Same-sex couples are consigned to an instability many opposite-sex couples would deem intolerable in their own lives.” For example:

Long time partners were unable to share in the pension survivor or social security benefits their partner or spouse had paid because they were not married. On death, they had no rights to inheritance as a spouse would, and without a will or forms providing guidance, a partner could not even authorize the transfer of their beloved’s deceased body out of the home after a heart attack.

There were no rights to a share of a deceased partner’s estate without a will, meaning a survivor could lose both their beloved partner and their financial security.

Although couples shared bank and credit card accounts, bought property together, and planned life together as one family, their invisibility as a legal family compelled them:
- to pay for separate health insurance policies,
- to file separate federal income tax returns and to pay higher rates without the married filing jointly status or the ability to take or pool various deductions.
- on the end of their relationship, to burdensome litigation because there was no divorce process to help them sort out their debts, property division, or parental rights and responsibilities of their children.
Most consequentially, without marriage, in many states couples were unable to obtain a court judgment of adoption or joint parentage that would secure both partners legal relationship with their child.
These and many other extra financial burdens or extra processes to secure what was automatic for married couples placed significant strain and hardship on the families of same-sex couples.

In May 2004, the era of same-sex couples’ legal exclusion from marriage ended. In a decisive and historical turning point, as a result of the 2003 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, same-sex couples could marry legally in that State. And people came to Massachusetts to marry!

In 2007, the Massachusetts Legislature, after 3+ years of constitutional amendment efforts to undo Goodridge, defeated the last of the amendment proposals, making it clear to the nation and the world that marriage of same sex couples was here to stay.

Following that turning point, courts in Connecticut (2008), California (2008), and Iowa ruled that marriage bans are unconstitutional. Then the first wave of state legislatures began passing marriage laws, including Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in 2009. By the time the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal “Defense of Marriage Act” in 2013, numerous state legislatures had also passed marriage equality laws, starting with New York in 2011, Maine’s ballot win on marriage in 2012, as well as Delaware, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. In 2013, marriage was also restored to California after a Supreme Court ruling about the litigation following passage of Proposition in 2008.

The 20^th anniversary of marriage equality in 2024 provided an opportunity for the RAND Corporation to conduct research and review all peer-reviewed literature on the impact of same-sex couples marrying both for them and for the broader society. The research demonstrated a positive impact for married same-sex couples and their children, including greater economic stability, better physical and mental health, and more access to health insurance for children. And contrary to predictions from opponents leading into the Obergefell case, there were no adverse consequences – no drop in marriage rates or rise in divorce rates for different-sex couples over the last 20 years.

The bar on same-sex couples marrying marked our families as outsiders, deprived LGBTQ+ people and families of countless protections and responsibilities, and violated our constitutional commitments to due process of law and equal protection of the laws. The 2015 Supreme Court Obergefell opinion ended by emphasizing the ability to join in marriage is part of “equal dignity in the eyes of the law” and affirming that “the Constitution grants LGBTQ people that right.”

Marriage equality touches and benefits entire communities across the country. One way we can protect equality is through conversations about why marriage matters to us and to others.

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**10 Years After Obergefell, Our Work to Protect LGBTQ+ Families Continues**

GLAD Law led the fight for marriage equality, from the first state court win in Massachusetts to arguing the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges case at the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, we’re working to make sure all LGBTQ+ families, and our ability to build and grow them, are protected.

This June 26 marks the tenth anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling that made marriage equality the law of the land. The historic ruling followed years of work in the courts and state legislatures, alongside many thousands of LGBTQ+ people and supporters across all backgrounds, faiths, and regions of the country.

Ten years on, it’s clear that nationwide marriage equality has been good for LGBTQ+ people and our children. Beyond that, it strengthens communities by respecting families, improving health and economic stability for couples and parents raising kids, and assists businesses and other economic actors by removing the complications of a patchwork system of marriage recognition. It’s no surprise that the vast majority of Americans continue to strongly support marriage equality. Likewise, in 2022, a bipartisan Congress codified Obergefell’s constitutional guarantees of equal recognition and respect from states and the federal government for LGBTQ+ people’s and other marriages into federal law with the Respect for Marriage Act.

Politicians in a handful of states have introduced resolutions this year urging the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell. But these measures have not gained traction and have been rebuffed, including by Republicans who view marriage equality as settled and have moved on. Even if passed, a resolution would have no practical effect and is not a route to Supreme Court review. GLAD Law is prepared to defend against any attempts to chip away at Obergefell’s protections – but even in this moment when we are facing increased anti-LGBTQ+ policies, we can be clear: neither the federal government nor any state can take away your marriage.

Widening the lens, even in this extraordinarily challenging year, we are protecting family and parent-child relationships beyond marriage, too. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled to protect the relationship between a lesbian non-birth mother and her child. The legislature is now also considering a Parentage Act that would ensure paths for all children to have the security of a legal tie to both of their parents, no matter their parents’ gender or marital status, or how their family was formed.

GLAD Law has been instrumental in passing such laws in many states over the last 15 years, with the latest wins including the Michigan Family Protection Act and the Massachusetts Parentage Act, both effective in 2025. New Mexico also enacted a confirmatory adoption law this year, providing a streamlined path for same-sex parents to confirm their legal relationship with their child and ensure it will be respected wherever they move or travel. As we write this, a similar bill just passed the Vermont legislature and has been sent to the governor, bringing the number of states with such laws to ten once that bill is signed.

But we have also seen warning signs that the Trump administration and its political allies aim to target LGBTQ+ families, restrict access to fertility health care, and narrow the definition of who can be a family.

An April 3 White House proclamation about National Child Abuse Prevention Month frighteningly sought to cast support for transgender young people as a “prevalent” form of child abuse. The proclamation singled out schools and health care providers as “offenders,” but its sweep could include parents who secure necessary health care for their transgender children. The proclamation also emphasized the importance of a “strong mother and father,” language often used in the past to delegitimize LGBTQ+ families. Proclamations are not law, but they signal how far this administration may try to go.

We are also seeing signals that the Trump administration and its allies may further restrict access to reproductive care. Despite promises to make assisted reproduction and IVF to help people build their families “affordable and available to all,” the actions of administration allies seek to redefine infertility care and delay and limit IVF.

Groups like the anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation, which led “Project 2025,” seek to replace effective, science-based health care with recommendations that stigmatize people navigating fertility challenges, ignore male infertility, and push women to focus on lifestyle and stress issues to achieve “natural” conception. Such a focus ignores the steps many people have already tried to achieve a pregnancy over a period of time and delays access to IVF, where time can be of the essence. In fact, pushing off IVF to a later and later day, and with fewer IVF cycles completed, may well be the point. In April, Arkansas became the first state to pass a law that rejects IVF as deviating from “natural human functions.”

We don’t yet know what will come of this developing effort at the federal level. Still, the warning signs are clear that the government and its allies want to control who has access to IVF and family building, who can be a family, and under what circumstances.

GLAD Law is working in coalition with reproductive rights, fertility health care, and family advocacy groups—including the grassroots-led multi-state coalition State Strong, which grew out of work for the Michigan Family Protection Act—to ensure access to fertility health care remains science-based, accessible and affordable, and inclusive of all people who seek to build their families.

Many people across demographic groups, including LGBTQ+ people, seek to build families and raise and nurture the next generation. From legal security for children and parents to marriage equality, protecting LGBTQ+ families has been a core part of GLAD Law’s work since our founding nearly 50 years ago. We won’t stand by while some politicians again attempt to make it harder for LGBTQ+ people to form families or narrowly define anyone’s family out of existence.

Marriage equality touches and benefits entire communities across the country. One way we can protect equality is through conversations about why marriage matters to us and to others.

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In moments of great strife, it is my tendency to go inward. I’m certain it’s a defense mechanism that protects me from anxiety, stress, intellectualizing situations, grieving, and anguish. In the quiet, my solemn contemplation, I seek inspiration to pull me back from challenges, disappointments, and betrayals that the world has thrown at me.

Yesterday, after the heartbreaking Skrmetti decision was announced, I needed time to collect my thoughts, pay attention to my body’s response, and dig deep to reassure myself that despite the loss we experienced I don’t “predicate fighting on winning.”

The catalyst that inspired me to pick my head back up this time was Opal Lee. She is known as the “grandmother of Juneteenth.” She’s a Texan (born in small town Marshal), a retired schoolteacher, a board member of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF), and an organizer.

For decades she championed establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. Back in 2016, at 88 years old, she began an annual 2.5 mile walk to draw more public attention to the cause. The length of the walk symbolizing the two and a half years it took for news of emancipation to reach Texas. Concurrently, she began a petition to showcase the public’s support for the observance of Juneteenth as a holiday. A year later in 2017, Opal walked 1,400 miles to Washington D.C. – delivering 1.5 million signatures to Congress supporting Juneteenth.

Opal has described herself as a ‘little old lady in tennis shoes getting in everybody’s business.’ But the reality is that her efforts and impact are widely felt. Her approach, defined by her patience, creativity, historical perspective and charisma, galvanized Texans. She had a novel idea, committed time, love, and advocated on the principle that America was founded on: Freedom. Her message was simple and effective – taking her all the way to the White House where on June 17, 2021, President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Her success did not happen overnight.

So how did Opal Lee snap me back from my reflective pondering? I focused on the lessons her story taught me.

A hurtful past can fuel a powerful future: A mob of white supremacists burned her house down on June 19,1939 when she was 12 years old. Rather than allowing that hurtful experience to be a barrier to advocacy, she instead focused and reclaimed that date to help bring people together to understand the importance of Juneteenth.
Tenacity, persistence, and creativity have the power to create change: While our setbacks are real, they are never the end of the story. We keep moving forward, refining our concrete strategies and developing novel tactics to galvanize people to create meaningful and sustainable change. The tide can and will turn.
We get so much more done together than apart: Opal Lee has always said none of us are free until we are all free. Ms. Lee is not preaching platitudes; she believes this. She understands the power of community. As do we. We are part of a greater whole– and like all our social justice partners, we contribute to the collective in our areas of specialty – converging in strategic ways to protect the best things about this country – including our intersectional multifaceted identities.

Opal Lee’s perseverance, tenacity, and expressions of love reminded me that we have to remain steadfast in our commitment to achieving justice and equality – regardless of the setbacks.

Beyond the lessons her advocacy taught me, there is much to reflect on as we observe Juneteenth today.

On that day when the last enslaved African ancestors were freed, they were promised a broad range of rights (knows as the 12 freedoms). Those freedoms like personal liberty, access to education, right to legal protection, freedom of movement, access to healthcare have not always been upheld for Black Americans and are now similarly being denied to marginalized groups like transgender people.

As we grieve the Skrmetti decision let us also recognize the ongoing inequality that has long existed in this country for Black Americans. Let us also acknowledge that our struggle is inextricably connected. Let us also celebrate resilience, perseverance, past victories, and lessons learned.

The fight is long from over. We are powerful beyond measure. And as Opal would say “everybody has a part to play.”

Learn more about Opal Lee’s legacy in Fort Worth Texas, in this video on her life’s work and the future of The National Juneteenth Museum.

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The Resistance Brief: Hard Pass on Authoritarian Rule

Blog by Ricardo Martinez (he/him), Executive Director

What once felt unthinkable is now unfolding in plain sight: the United States of America teeters precariously between freedom and authoritarianism.

Contempt for those from marginalized communities, especially immigrants and LGBTQ people, attempted suppression of dissent by military force in Los Angeles, curtailing of due process, individual rights, and freedoms, the utilization of propaganda and disinformation, the upcoming authoritarian-like military display scheduled in DC, overt racism, and xenophobia have become increasingly common in our country.

These malignant beliefs and practices aim to replace widespread values of equality, care for the common good, and trust in the rule of law. It is no surprise that many of us are finding it hard to keep our heads above water. Especially for so many of us living intersecting identities as queer immigrants.

I’m a child of immigrants. My parents left their families and the lives they built in Mexico for the possibility that their children could build on their sacrifice. My mom worked cleaning houses, and my dad was a line cook. We lived in a modest one-bedroom apartment without a lot of furniture. The security guard at my elementary school helped us obtain school uniforms, and neighbors donated used furniture to help make an empty apartment feel like home. At night, my mom would manually manufacture pens – blistering her hands for twenty-five dollars a bulk-box. My parents worked so hard, and it was expected that my siblings and I would work just as hard in school.

We didn’t live an affluent life, but we did lead a dignified one. It was a life that valued hard work, centered on family and a community of Black, Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, and Russian neighbors, and felt autonomous and full of possibility.

I grew up knowing many families who shared elements of my story: the struggle to make ends meet, fortitude for navigating language and cultural barriers, and the practice of adaptability that allowed us to unite across difference. This was the pathway to the “American Dream.”

So, when I see videos of the way Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are detaining people on their daily journey to a better life at their workplaces, courthouses, and schools, it feels deeply personal. It’s hard not to see my parents’ and neighbors’ faces on the bodies that ICE agents are aggressively apprehending. I know I’m not the only one who recognizes the inhumane treatment of our neighbors – the lack of care and refusal to honor the dignity and innate value of human beings. Recognizing what we are up against is of paramount importance. Dehumanization, scapegoating, reminiscing about a romanticized past, and weaponizing agencies are all part of a broader plan.

They have been using vulnerable communities with limited power to personify divisive political issues, creating the widespread passivity they need to normalize political violence and broader institutional control and, ultimately, destruction.

We are all sensing this systematic destruction and are struggling with how to respond. And that is by design. The closer to the wreckage – the more pronounced the hurt and despair. This gives those who feel far away from destruction a false sense of safety and the administration more time to slowly and methodically maintain a pace of attack that no longer feels like a crisis.

But it is a crisis.

The stress test on just how much brutalization towards marginalized communities we will tolerate will continue until more people recognize that attacks on immigrants put every American at risk for denial of due process; attacks on transgender healthcare lead to the destruction of established medical institutions and research; PrEP coverage challenges lead to the dismantling of preventive care like mammograms, and vaccines; and school sports investigations are just one more vehicle to undermine our public education system.

So what can we do to reject authoritarianism?

First, you have to recognize that we are part of a greater whole, a movement, and cannot do it alone. You can choose to lean into the area of the social justice movement you feel passionate about and where your skills, talents, privilege, influence, risk-tolerance, and power have the greatest impact. And that would be enough. All actions, big or small, contribute to protecting the democratic freedoms this administration is hellbent on taking away from us.

It’s our job to make a choice to contribute. If you can donate, give monthly. If you can protest, turn out to peaceful public demonstrations. If you have influence online, uplift the need for advocacy and the expansion of civic engagement space. If you can lead, become a leader in your community. If you make art – record the moment to history.

The best thing GLAD Law can do is continue to show up in the ways we have – using all aspects of the law to champion LGBTQ+ rights. We are part of a greater ecosystem of organizations focused on social justice – each contributing to the whole in our areas of specialty – converging in strategic ways to protect the best things about this country and reassemble the rubble of structures that no longer serve us.

We need to think innovatively about how we respond and also dream of a future that is being held in trust for all of us. A future where we all have an equal shot at living a good life, with access to affordable housing and healthcare, and where we can provide for ourselves and our families. A future where we don’t have to calculate risk when entering spaces that we’re unfamiliar with. A future where there is endless possibility for immigrant families living in the US. Where all LGBTQ+ people can live freely and safely. And where access to the American Dream is not anchored in white supremacy and afforded to only those who fit neatly into boxes and categories deemed worthy. The needle is being pushed toward authoritarianism, and we must push back.

What to know, what to do:

Read the blog: Jennifer Levi, Senior Director of Transgender and Queer Rights, describes the administration’s “institutional destruction”.
Contact your legislators: tell them to oppose anti-civil rights, anti-trans bills in Maine.
Rachel Maddow: Showing up is vital, and it’s working.

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From the Front Lines: Queer Eye for the Hidden Lie

Blog by Jennifer Levi, Senior Director of Queer and Transgender Rights

Jennifer Levi

With daily crises erupting—deportations of students here legally, federal troops deployed against peaceful protesters, public health dismantled, LGBTQ+ young people under attack—it’s easy to get distracted by the chaos. But step back, and a different pattern emerges.

New administrations routinely change policy priorities, using federal oversight and funding to push institutions toward compliance with their agenda. This is normal democratic governance. But what’s happening now is different. This isn’t about institutional compliance; it’s about institutional destruction.

The daily chaos has conditioned us to expect crises, but this systematic dismantling of foundational structures feels different. It’s slower, more methodical, and doesn’t trigger the same alarm bells. It’s jarring and disorienting precisely because it doesn’t feel like the kind of crises we’ve been trained to recognize.

This administration knows that direct attacks on popular institutions generate resistance. So they’ve developed a different approach: use vulnerable communities as testing grounds to build infrastructure needed for broader institutional control and, ultimately, destruction.

This isn’t just scapegoating. It’s much more strategic. Attack the most stigmatized groups first to create legal precedents, enforcement mechanisms, and bureaucratic authorities that can later apply everywhere to destroy foundational structures of governance.

Here are three examples:

A recent Department of Health and Human Services report rejects proven care for transgender adolescents. At its strategic heart, this isn’t about transgender people—it establishes federal authority to override medical judgment. Now, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services demands hospital reporting, and the FBI solicits public complaints about providers. This apparatus, once in place, can target and destroy any disfavored medical practice.

What looked like a narrow religious liberty case in Braidwood v. Becerra has morphed into an assault on the federal task force that identifies which preventive services insurance must cover. PrEP was the vehicle leveraged to try to destroy scientifically sound preventive care recommendations for everyone. Attack public health care associated with gay men, and mammograms, vaccines, and colonoscopies, potentially lose coverage too.

With investigations launched by the United States Department of Education supposedly focused on transgender athletes, schools across the country face compliance burdens far beyond LGBTQ+ students—curriculum audits, bathroom policies, and withdrawal from state programs. The demands are designed to be impossible to meet, forcing schools to choose between excluding transgender students or facing bureaucratic destruction that makes normal operations impossible. The goal is to make public education unworkable.

Each attack creates infrastructure that serves as a destruction mechanism far outlasting the initial target. The process masquerades as routine—agency reports, compliance requirements, targeted defunding. We’re conditioned to expect chaos, so systematic dismantling can feel routine or be invisible to those who think they’re unaffected.

This systematic assault demands a systematic response. GLAD Law’s surge litigation, deploying resources to swiftly challenge the administration’s most dangerous moves, represents just the kind of rapid-response strategy needed to disrupt this demolition project. By moving quickly and strategically, we can prevent these precedents from taking root and stop the infrastructure of destruction from becoming operational.

GLAD Law’s approach is clear: stop what we can, delay what we can’t stop, and grow harm reduction resources so they can be made more readily available along the way. Every injunction we win, every harmful regulation we block, and every enforcement mechanism we challenge helps preserve the democratic structures that must survive this systematic approach. The administration is counting on us being overwhelmed by the daily chaos. With queer eyes trained on their real strategy and our community standing strong together, GLAD Law is determined to prove them wrong.

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The Resistance Brief: This week in the fight for justice

Forced Separation

Blog by Ricardo Martinez (he/him), Executive Director

Expelling courageous servicemembers who have put their lives on the line for this country is beneath contempt.

Following the Supreme Court decision to allow the Trump administration’s transgender military ban to take effect while legal challenges continue, transgender servicemembers find themselves having to make unfathomable decisions. They must tell the military whether they will leave “voluntarily” or wait to be forced out.

Active-duty transgender servicemembers have until today, June 6, to accept what the military has termed “voluntary” separation. Transgender servicemembers in the reserves have until July 7 to do the same. These are people who have served honorably, many for decades, earning medals and distinctions. Yet they’re being forced to choreograph their own dismissal, simply for being transgender.

I recently spoke to a couple of our plaintiffs, who shared that many trans servicemembers can barely sleep trying to make this devastatingly difficult, life-altering decision. “It is really happening, thousands of us, many of whom have spent the majority of our lives working towards or in military service, are about to lose everything and have to start all over again from square one. It’s a very heavy feeling.”

Servicemembers are left moving in directions that lead to the same unfavorable outcome: the end of their military careers. They are caught between a rock and a hard place – the carrot or the stick. On one hand, they take “voluntary” separation, which coerces them with “incentives” to end their career, like forgiven repayment of bonuses. On the other hand, they stay for now and face being pushed out later under even harsher terms.

This isn’t really a choice at all. Take Hunter Marquez for example. Hunter is a cadet who just graduate from the United States Air Force Academy. Recently, he completed the demanding physical and academic requirements required by the military but because he is transgender, he was not commissioned as an officer. On graduation day, he was presented with his “choice”—leave the career he’d worked toward, or face potentially repaying the full cost of his military education, a debt that would devastate his ability to launch his professional life.

Regardless of each individual’s personal decision, honor and principle are drivers of service for each of our plaintiffs, and for thousands of other transgender servicemembers. History will record the unfairness of their expulsion.

I can’t begin to understand the profound “sense of institutional betrayal,” as one plaintiff told me, that these servicemembers are feeling. I’m outraged by the abusive maltreatment these decorated servicemembers are receiving simply because of who they are. As the world continues to teeter between authoritarianism and freedom, I worry that this treatment is being normalized.

We should, at all costs, fight being desensitized to the abnormal treatment of servicemembers who have historically exemplified the American values of integrity, honor, and courage. Our sense of the common good and collective well-being rests on our ability or inability to sense the chilling ripple effect of discriminatory practices aimed at our most vulnerable communities.

Today is a heartbreaking and shameful day, as the implementation of Trump’s transgender military ban goes into effect in the short term. But our fight doesn’t end. We have many tools to challenge the hostile attacks coming our way, litigation chief among them. We are still awaiting an appellate court decision in our challenge to the transgender military ban that could yet allow these servicemembers to continue serving while our constitutional case moves forward. Whatever happens to transgender service members in the short-run, GLAD Law will keep fighting to protect them.

We are in it for the long haul. Our plaintiffs, and our entire community, deserve no less.

What to know, what to do:

Send a message of support and thanks to transgender servicemembers.
Read this powerful op-ed from Wayne Maines: “I didn’t think transgender kids were real. My love for my daughter changed that.”
Tell senators to say no to ripping healthcare away from millions of Americans, including thousands of LGBTQ+ adults, who are twice as likely to have Medicaid as their primary insurance.

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The Resistance Brief: This week in the fight for justice

Fighting for our Lives, Again

Blog by Ricardo Martinez (he/him), Executive Director

Since the days of Anita Bryant, anti-LGBTQ+ forces have fueled a public narrative aimed at fostering negative attitudes, beliefs, and stereotypes about LGBTQ+ people. Through a combination of social, cultural, religious, political, and legal strategies, descendants of Anita have tried to narrowly characterize, villainize, and paint queer people as a danger to children, women, and society.

The architects of online disinformation targeting transgender people recycle the same formula Anita Bryant used to galvanize her followers in the 1970’s: 1) identify something about our community not widely understood by Americans, 2) fill that knowledge gap with disinformation, 3) use the resulting fear to manufacture outrage, and 4) use that mass hysteria as an excuse to further marginalize and legislate against us – ALL OF US.

Just before 7 am last Thursday, following a late night debate while most of us were sleeping, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed H.R. 1 – a massive bill containing sweeping cuts to Medicaid, SNAP benefits, access to reproductive care, and after the addition of a 42-page manager’s amendment, access to health care for transgender people.

Medicaid cuts will make care less accessible and more expensive for those who need it most, including poor, elderly, and disabled Americans. Approximately 1.8 million LGBT adults have Medicaid as their primary source of health insurance. And these cuts will also will impact HIV treatment, screening, and preventative services.

Whatever the calculus used, I don’t understand why 215 US representatives would tolerate the suffering of hungry children, disabled Americans who require long-term care, and the loss of access to necessary health care of millions. The real danger to children, women, and society is apathy – the collective consciousness’ indifference to agony, suffering, and the embrace of detachment and numbness.

When we allow ourselves to be coerced into believing that poor families do not deserve assistance, or that accessing health care is a right only given to those whose care we deem necessary and appropriate, we erode our intrinsic capacity to empathize with our neighbors. And that leads to irreparable harm for so many of us.

We are seeing a clear pattern in this administration’s behavior – with each harmful action, the impact is stretched, broadened, just enough that it continues to largely impact only those in our society who have historically had less power. Their initial targets were transgender and queer people, women, Black and Brown people – and now this bill doubles down on targeting those groups while also harming poor people, disabled people, children, and the elderly. This harm is felt regardless of political persuasion, and regardless of the ability of people to even recognize it.

But just because we, as individuals, have less power than billionaires who seek to control us doesn’t mean that we do not have tremendous collective power.

As LGBTQ+ people, we can learn from the health care advocacy of our ancestors. I think about ACT UP and the sheer amount of policy change those fearless activists were able to propel. Their model was one that we can learn from in this moment of high stakes and competing visions for a way forward.

Though it was one larger movement, the strategy and action of ACT UP was driven by smaller affinity groups – groups of artists, feminists and, in many cases, friends, fighting for their own lives in the way that they knew best. Instead of seeking consensus, which is often difficult to achieve quickly enough for the most urgent of times, each small group drove initiatives that were most important to them. Then, at every meeting, the groups would read this unifying statement: “ACT UP is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis.” Together, they forced the country to recognize the severity of the crisis through innovative protest and communications tactics, while also convincing government agencies to be more proactive in combatting the disease.

As LGBTQ+ people, we again find ourselves fighting for our lives, united in resistance. But we do so alongside countless other communities facing existential threats. We must all fight beside each other, each in the way that we know best, for the health and safety of our communities and for the common goal of the health and safety of all Americans.

We can be one resistance movement, in solidarity with each other, and still bring our expertise to focus on the issues that most deeply impact our unique communities. And the collective impact can be, and will be, greater than any of us could achieve alone.

What to know, what to do:

Learn more about the harmful impact of H.R. 1, if passed, on transgender people of all ages in The Advocate.
Demand that your senators protect critical funding for essential health care by voting no on H.R. 1.
Read more about ACT UP’s innovative structure and strategies in this interview with activist and author Sarah Schulman.
Find us at your local Pride in the coming months – come say hi or march with us at Boston Pride for the People!

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The Resistance Brief: This week in the fight for justice

Really? Rainbow Flags?

Blog by Ricardo Martinez (he/him), Executive Director

I was recently asked to take part in a flag raising ceremony to commemorate Pride Month. I’ve agreed to attend the event because showcasing a city’s commitment to the values of liberty and progress reminds me of the future we are co-creating right now. Raising the Pride flag is a celebration of the sacrifices made on behalf of equality and justice by those who came before me and a reminder that there is still much to be done to safeguard that progress – including fighting for the ability to display this symbol of hope, promise, and expression.

I was not out and proud in high school. But classmates who were part of the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) were, and the pins, flags, and t-shirt they wore made me feel that if I could muster up the courage to say the words, I’m gay, that I would have community who would welcome me.

As an adult, I came to understand the power that visual signals have in communicating messages of hope, inclusion, respect, and belonging. As someone who has worked at various organizations that focus on school belonging, education equity, and post-secondary education attainment, I have learned that supportive adults, the existence of GSA clubs and inclusive curriculum help queer kids feel valued and respected. An ally educator displaying a pride flag can make the difference on whether a queer kid feels out of place and misunderstood or seen and validated.

Having a sense of belonging increases queer students’ class attendance, participation in extracurricular activities, and educational aspirations. This is why it’s so alarming that lawmakers from more than a dozen states across the country have prioritized trying to ban the display of Pride flags in schools. These attacks on symbols of affirmation and inclusion for queer and trans youth come on the heels of efforts to ban books, intimidate LGBTQ+ teachers to remain in the closet, and out queer kids to their parents. The result is schools that feel much less welcoming to LGBTQ+ young people.

The bans are especially tragic at this time when LGBTQ+ kids – especially transgender and nonbinary youth – are being scapegoated for political gain and need symbols of hope and affirmation more than ever.

Moonlighting as an effort to achieve political neutrality – even as the very nature of these restrictions on free speech are politically motivated – lawmakers have escalated local efforts. So-called “parent’s rights” groups like Moms for Liberty are leading attempts to ban flags and symbols of inclusion in school districts across the country, and even in more progressive states like California and Massachusetts. Some have been adopted despite robust public debate, while others have been defeated.

Utah was the first state to limit the display of flags at schools and government buildings. Only an approved list including the United States flag, military flag, college, and state flags can be displayed without consequence. The law imposes a $500 a day fine on government employees who choose to display any flag not on the approved list – including the Pride flag. The law also encourages school staff to act as informants to enforce the law – pitting school staff against each other and holding harmless the reporting party – further emboldening vigilante actors with animus against the community.

Cunning, clever, and vague language within legislation that avoids outright biased text but accomplishes discriminatory goals is a part of the strategy. But when you look at the witness list and recognize the organizations who are showing up in support of bills like this it’s easy to recognize the target: the LGBTQ+ community. The same organizations showing up to testify in support of anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ bills have shown up to testify in support of these flag ban bills. In Utah, 72% of testifiers were against the bill. In Arizona 88% of people opposed it. And in Texas 93% of witnesses disapproved of the bill.

These are not popular policies and yet they are being championed and prioritized by far-right lawmakers who are looking to import and implement attacks on LGBTQ+ people and limits on free speech from Washington D.C. In Wisconsin, the bill was introduced shortly after Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent similar guidance to U.S. embassies – effectively banning the Pride flag in U.S. consulates abroad.

And while copy-cat flag ban bills continue to pop up in state legislatures, their success is not imminent. Florida’s HB 75/SB 100 which aimed to ban Pride flags from government buildings, schools and universities recently failed, thanks in part to Equality Florida’s effort to mobilize their largest advocacy week ever. It was people power that determined the fate of this bill.

Many folks are looking for a way to join the resistance against the myriad of attacks on our community right now. As local organizations and groups have proven, community engagement on this issue can create the pushback necessary to stall these poorly disguised attempts to reduce our visibility and demoralize us. In our town and cities, we have agency, and we have collective power to build the future we deserve.

Banning Pride flags does not achieve political neutrality – it infringes upon, sets a dangerous precedent, and undermines our civil rights and expression.

What to know, what to do:

Read about how mayors in Boise and Salt Lake City have adopted official city flags with affirming symbols to allow their display in city buildings despite state laws designed to ban them.
Find us at your local Pride in the coming months – come say hi or march with us at Boston Pride for the People!
Check out our website to start, grow, or strengthen your GSA with youth-centered resources and rights info.
Check out your town or city election calendar – many local elections are held “off-cycle,” including in May or June – and pay close attention to local races with big impact, including School Committee/Board and City Council.

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